Lyric Atchison is from North Vancouver, British Columbia and is a part of the Squamish Nation. Atchison was always a multi-sport athlete; she played soccer, wrestling and later on participated in rugby in 2012 at the age of 13.
Lyric Atchison is a First Nation rugby athlete. Atchison was captain at Carson Graham high school and led her team to two championships, 2016 and 2017. Once graduating from Carson Graham high school, she continued her studies at the University of British Columbia with an undergrad in Kinesiology (UBC). [1] As an athlete, there are five years of eligibility playing at the varsity level. The rugby team at the University of British Columbia is the Thunderbirds. Once Atchison started playing rugby her position is known as a Back Row, Rugby union positions. The Squamish First Nation member is a national level youth wrestler and rugby player. Atchison won the Premier's Award for Aboriginal Youth Excellence in Sport for the Vancouver Coastal region, as a grade 12 student at Carson Graham. [2] Canada's Women's U20 head coach has set the roster for the team traveling to England to compete in the Tri-Nations Cup for July 2018 – 2019 and Atchison was announced as one of the players. [3]
The Tom Longboat Award was established in 1951 and is given to Aboriginal athletes to recognize their outstanding contributions to sport in Canada. Moreover, the British Columbia player was honored of being the 2019 winner of the Tom Longboat Award, recognized as the female Aboriginal athlete of the entire year. [4] The Aboriginal Sport Circle picks the following Aboriginal athlete who receives the honour of being a Tom Longboat winner. Lyric Atchison is a First Nation athlete from the Squamish Nation and has impacted the rugby world at a young age playing for Carson Graham Eagles and then joining UBC Thunderbirds. Atchison features in BC Provincial Age-Grade XVs teams and part of the undefeated BC U18 Tour of Ireland in 2017. [5]
The UBC Thunderbirds are the athletic teams that represent the University of British Columbia. In Canadian intercollegiate competition, the Thunderbirds are the most successful athletic program both regionally in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association, and nationally in U Sports, winning 116 national titles. UBC has won an additional 20 national titles competing in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics against collegiate competition from the United States and 40 national titles in sports that compete in independent competitions.
Jessica Deglau was a member of the Canadian Olympic team in swimming in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games. Deglau swam for the Vancouver Pacific Swim Club in her youth, until becoming a member of the national team. In addition to swimming on the national team, she swam for and graduated from the University of British Columbia.
Andrea Neil is a pioneer of women's soccer in Canada. Neil retired from the game after representing Canada more than any other Canadian player in history.
The British Columbia Men's Premier League is a provincial rugby union competition currently contested by twelve clubs in British Columbia, Canada and one in the U.S. state of Washington. The BC Premier League is organized by the British Columbia Rugby Union.
Alfred John Scow was the first Aboriginal person to graduate from a BC law school, the first Aboriginal lawyer called to the BC bar and the first Aboriginal legally trained judge appointed to the BC Provincial Court.
Rick Brant is a Mohawk athlete who primarily competed in track and field. Brant is a Tom Longboat winner, winning the National award in 1987. He is originally from Ontario and a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation He now resides in Cowichan, British Columbia. Brant is most recently known for his contribution in being a founding member of the Aboriginal Sports Circle, Executive Director of the Indigenous Sport Physical Activity and Recreation Council (I·SPARC) and CEO of three separate North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) - 1993, 1997 and 2008. Brant served as President of the North American Indigenous Games Council from 2015 to 2018. He continues to serve on the Council's Executive Committee as Past President.
Beverly "Bev" Beaver is a Mohawk Canadian athlete from the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, known for her performance in fastball, hockey, and bowling. Beaver was born to Reg and Norma Henhawk and had four siblings, Sidney Henhawk, Charlene Nuttycombe, Toni Johnson, and Justine Bomberry. Beaver's competed as a professional athlete from 1961 to 1994. She is known to have developed her athletic skills by playing sports with boys throughout her childhood, even becoming a prominent player on a boy's bantam hockey team at age 13. Beaver played exclusively on Native fastball teams; however, she has played on non-Native teams in other sports. Throughout her career she earned awards such as the Regional Tom Longboat Award for Southern Ontario (1967) and the National Tom Longboat Award (1980). Beaver is credited with earning other awards for performance in fastball, hockey, and bowling. Some of her hockey artifacts are in the Hockey Hall of Fame, in its diversity exhibit.
Richard "Bear" Peter is a Canadian First Nations wheelchair basketball and para-badminton player. Peter was born in Duncan, British Columbia, and currently resides in Vancouver. When Richard was four years old, he was injured in a bus accident, leaving him in a wheelchair ever since. He began playing wheelchair basketball at the age of 15 when he was inspired by a team that came to his school and introduced him to wheelchair sports. Since then, Peter has competed in the 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, winning the gold metal for wheelchair basketball for three of those years.
Lara Mussell Savage is a two-time world champion in Ultimate, earning a gold medal in both 2000 and 2004, as well as bronze medals in 1998 and 2008. Leading up to 2010, Lara was a part of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic & Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) as Project Manager for Aboriginal Sport and Youth. Previous to this, she was the Operations Manager for the Air Canada PGA Tour Championship. Adding to her resume, in 2015 Mussell Savage became an ambassador for viaSport’s Gender Equity #LevelTheField campaign promoting gender equity in sport and became a Trustee for the British Columbia (BC) Sports Hall of Fame & Museum.
Phyllis "Yogi" Bomberry was a Canadian softball catcher from southwestern Ontario. She competed nationally winning many Canadian Women's Softball Championships. Bomberry became the first female to win the Tom Longboat Award. She died on January 3, 2019.
Bowinn Ma, MLA is a Canadian politician, who was elected to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in the 2017 provincial election. Ma then stood for re-election in the 2020 British Columbia general election, again for the British Columbia New Democratic Party. Ma won decisively a second term, in spite of some BC Liberal harassment of her. She represents the electoral district of North Vancouver-Lonsdale as a member of the British Columbia New Democratic Party caucus.
Janice Forsyth is a Canadian associate professor of Sociology and the director of the Indigenous Studies program at Western University in London, Ontario. A former varsity athlete Forsyth was awarded the Tom Longboat Regional Award for Ontario in 2002.
The Tom Longboat Awards were established in 1951 to recognize Aboriginal athletes "for their outstanding contributions to sport in Canada" and continues "to honour Indigenous athletes across Canada" annually. As a program of the Aboriginal Sport Circle, the awards provide a forum for acknowledging top male and female athletes both at the regional and national levels.
Jason Loutitt was a Canadian marathon and long-distance mountain runner and cyclist from Squamish, British Columbia. Loutitt was the recipient of the Tom Longboat Award in 2001.
The Aboriginal Sport Circle (ASC) is a not-for-profit organization that was founded in 1995. It is designated as Canada's governing body and voice for Aboriginal sport throughout the country. The ASC brings together the athletic interests of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities, to increase and promote physical health among indigenous populations. The ASC also gives out the national Tom Longboat Award to the outstanding male and female Aboriginal athlete in Canada each year.
David Sidoo is a Canadian stock promoter, businessman, philanthropist, and former professional Canadian football player. Sidoo played for the University of British Columbia Thunderbirds, and is an inductee in the UBC Sports Hall of Fame and the BC Football Hall of Fame. David Sidoo was inducted into the University of British Columbia (UBC) Football Frank Gnup Wall of Honour in the athlete category in 2019. The Wall of Honour recognizes the outstanding contributions and achievements of UBC Football players, coaches, and builders. Sidoo, a former UBC Thunderbirds defensive back, was also named one of the UBC Football Top 100 Players of All-Time.
Joy SpearChief-Morris is an indigenous Canadian hurdler from Lethbridge, Alberta. She is a multiple Ontario University Athletics and U Sports track champion and has competed for the Canadian U23 National Team. A Blackfoot from Alberta's Blood Tribe, SpearChief-Morris was the (female) recipient of the 2017 Tom Longboat Awards, awarded annually by the Aboriginal Sport Circle to the most outstanding male and female indigenous athletes in Canada. Her mother is Kainai First Nation and her father is an African-American from Los Angeles.
Robert George Hindmarch was a Canadian educator, sports administrator and ice hockey coach. He was a multi-sport athlete at the University of British Columbia (UBC) as a student, and returned as a professor and its director of physical education. He and Father David Bauer established a permanent Canada men's national ice hockey team based at UBC in preparation for ice hockey at the 1964 Winter Olympics. Hindmarch later coached the UBC Thunderbirds men's ice hockey team for 214 wins in 12 seasons; they became one of the first Western Bloc sports teams to play a tour of games in China. He developed additional international sporting relationships for the Thunderbirds in South Korea and Japan, and served as vice-president of the Canadian Olympic Association for 16 years. Hindmarch was made a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia; and is inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and the BC Sports Hall of Fame.
The UBC Thunderbirds women's basketball team represent the University of British Columbia in the Canada West Universities Athletic Association of U Sports women's basketball. The Thunderbirds have won the Bronze Baby a total of five times, including the first three championships, spanning from 1972 to 1974. The last two national championships took place in 2004 and 2008. Both victories took place against the Regina Cougars. In 2004, the Thunderbirds defeated the Cougars by a 60-53 mark, while the 2008 triumph resulted in a 67-46 final.
Alfred V. Waugh is an indigenous architect based in British Columbia. Born in Yellowknife, Waugh Studied urban and regional analysis at the University of Lethbridge, and then studied architecture at the University of British Columbia School of Architecture. Waugh founded Formline Architecture+Urbanism in 2005, an Aboriginally-owned practice. He is perhaps best known for the design of the First Peoples House at the University of Victoria in BC, which he designed together with Kenneth Wong; the Indian Residential School History, and Dialogue Centre at the University of British Columbia in BC., designed with Manny Trinca and Vince Knudsen.